I quit Facebook today
I’ve been getting annoyed at Facebook for a while not because of the privacy concerns which many have expressed but because of the way facebook wants it's users use the site.
When I first sit down to my computer I probably do what a lot of people do, open up my internet browser, sometimes Chrome, sometimes Firefox and log on to Facebook. What do I find? A place where I can read about the daily happenings of my friends? Maybe a few pictures of their recent holidays? Sadly not, at least not anymore. What I find, and have now come to expect is a bunch of stupid images from that guy that used to be in one of my high school classes. Maybe a few depressing posts from someone who found my profile from a fan page I liked. Then, worse of all, the endless pages liked about some guy who just got kicked off of the latest reality TV program.
I don’t know about most people but this isn’t what I want to see from a site like Facebook. When I signed up, a few years ago now, I used to find it interesting reading about what people were doing. This was back before people could like everything on the internet and I wasn’t made constantly, and automatically, aware of the articles my ex’s friend is reading.
It’s not the sharing of more and more content that bothers me, it’s more to do with how it’s being displayed. Again back before the times of automatic sharing and internet-wide liking, I could easily read through everything on my news feed since I last time I checked it. I had about 100 friends back then, now that number has slightly risen to around 160, but I find it completely impossible to keep up with the content being posted, and almost always, I just don’t care anymore. That’s because it’s almost entirely made up of content friends have liked or have had automatically published by an app they’ve enabled. I rather see what my friends are personally posting, how did the job interview go, did they pass their driving test? These things are still being posted but they’re being lost more and more often in the amount of junk being published.
I think Facebook needs to start thinking about how the display content from their users. In my opinion I think a social network should focus on promoting real social interaction, not just displaying a long list of everything it's users have been doing. I don’t think they will be changing anything anytime soon, and I hope it may mean another website with a clearer view on what a social network is will be able to step up.
In conclusion I don’t think I’ll be returning to Facebook. With all the recent studies relating Facebook to increased stress and with the lack of decent social interaction I find there, I’m quite relieved to leave.
Author
Hello, I'm Lee.I'm a developer from the UK who writes about technology and startups. Here you'll find articles and tutorials about things that interest me. If you want to hire me or know more about me head over to my about me page
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